Doom/Death has to be done right, otherwise you're just playing Death Metal too slow and it's boring. Mournful Gust have such an overwrought name I was skeptical, but this album is like a lexicon on how to do it right. This Ukrainian band really knows what they are doing, and this is a feast for all fans of the style.

Heavy on the Doom, Mournful Gust are willing to do whatever it takes to depress you: achingly beautiful guitar harmonies, clean vocals, female singing, flutes, pianos or violins — whatever they have to do. That makes this album sound like a mess, but it isn't, it presents a powerful, unified sound. Some of these tunes are long, but all of them are surprisingly complex and even catchy. Every disparate element is where it needs to go to have a salutary effect on the composition, not a deleterious one. Harsh and clean vocals are used to create counterpoint and impact, heaviness is leavened by sharp melodies with each making the other more effective. In places this is surprisingly kickass, with faster riffs and rhythms than us usual for this kind of Doom.

I find this album just keeps getting cooler the more I spin it and the more closely I listen to it. I keep finding more good stuff to savor. The lyrics are a kind of incoherent word salad of mournful phrases, but I have to chalk that up to the language barrier, and that is a minor complaint, negligible really. What we have here is an album that is both sad and uplifting, complex, involving, and even hooky. It sounds at once progressive and in places almost medieval. A great Doom album that pretty much encapsulates what Doom/Death is supposed to be about. Do not miss it.